Chapter 28
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Henry
I took the final corner toward my house, not caring that the tires squealed or that I nearly hit a trash bin. Not after what I’d just learned.
I’d spent the entire drive back here trying to rationalize it.
But I couldn’t. I should have trusted my gut the first time I saw Blake’s brand and noticed his strange reaction when I’d mentioned Victor had claimed Sarah was chosen.
Instead, I’d convinced myself I was just looking for a villain now that Victor was dead when all along the villain was right fucking next to me.
And he played me.
Every break in this investigation came from Blake.
In reality, it was probably all just to steer me off course.
Now I didn’t know what was real or a bunch of lies.
All I did know was that Ariana was gone.
And I was going to make Blake pay.
The second I hit the brake, I threw the SUV into park and jumped out, ripping my gun from my holster as I stormed toward the pool house, flinging the door open.
Blake was asleep on the couch, Cato napping on the floor beside him. When he saw me walk in with my gun at the ready, he jumped to attention. I hushed him, silently moving toward Blake, my stomach roiling as I looked down at him. At this man I trusted for the past several years of my life.
And he betrayed me.
I could just put a bullet in him right now. But I wanted a fucking explanation. Wanted answers. Wanted him to beg for mercy.
And I wouldn’t give it to him.
I slowly brought the gun toward Blake and pressed it against his forehead. He immediately startled, his eyes flying open and meeting mine. A moment of disorientation flashed across his expression before he realized what had woken him up, his gaze widening even more.
“I’ll give you one chance to tell me the truth.”
“What are you talking about? What did you find in the stables?”
I barked out a laugh. “Like you don’t already know.”
“I don’t.”
I stared at him, studying his demeanor. His eyes remained locked with mine, his brows furrowed more in confusion than anything.
“Fine. I’ll play along.” I reached into my pocket and retrieved my cell. After pulling up the photo I took at the stable, I turned it toward him. “Look familiar?”
He inhaled a sharp breath, his eyes moving as they examined the photo.
“Care to tell me why that symbol was smeared in blood on the floor of the same stall where Ariana’s tracker was? The tracker you hid. And somehow this guy knew. How, Blake?”
“I don’t—”
“Don’t say you don’t know,” I interrupted, shoving my phone back into my pocket. “I know you do!”
“I don’t!” He held up his hands. “I swear to you.”
“Then how do you explain this?” I ripped my knife from my pocket and brought it up to his shirt, slicing away the fabric to reveal the same symbol.
Well, almost the same symbol.
In the center of the cross, instead of the letter J, like in the stable, there was a letter I.
Or maybe it was supposed to be an I but it got smeared.
That didn’t matter right now.
All that did is the fact that Blake had been playing me from the beginning.
“I knew something was up when I noticed that brand in the hospital. And the way you reacted when I told you Sarah had been chosen. But I brushed it off.” I swallowed hard through the lump forming in my throat.
I trusted this man. Confided in him. Even when he refused to confide in me. I figured he had to work through his own shit. Just like I had to work through mine once upon a time. Now I knew why. Because he was using me.
“Now tell me. Where the fuck is Ariana?” I pressed the gun against his chest. Against the twisted crown and cross.
“I swear to you, Henry. I don’t—”
“Don’t fucking lie to me!” I roared. “What does this mean? Is it from some fucked-up secret society or something?”
He blinked, his eyes searching mine, as if trying to figure out what to say.
“I’ll give you to three. One…”
“Henry,” he pleaded.
“Two.” I tightened my grip on the gun, every voice in my head telling me there was an explanation for all of this.
But I’d listened to those voices before. And it got me here. Pointing a weapon at my most trusted confidant with the love of my life gone.
“Last chance, Blake.” I pushed the gun harder against him, fighting to steady my hold as I brought my finger toward the trigger.
“Three,” I said at the same time as Blake shouted, “It’s a mark of ownership!”
I blinked repeatedly.
It wasn’t just his words that gave me pause.
It was the fear in his face.
“Explain,” I demanded.
“Can you put the gun down? Or at least give me a little breathing room here? I haven’t… I haven’t talked about this in years. I’d rather not relive the worst time of my life with a gun pointed at me, if it’s all the same to you.”
I glowered at him for a beat. Then, despite myself, I lowered my gun. “Fine. But if you make a single move off that couch, I will put a bullet in you.”
He chuckled under his breath. “I’d expect nothing less.”
I increased the distance between us, moving toward the chair opposite him. Cato trotted toward me and sat beside me, his attention focused solely on Blake as he pushed himself to sitting.
“Explain,” I demanded once more, wanting him to get on with it. With every second he delayed, my chances of finding Ariana grew slimmer and slimmer.
On a long sigh, he ran a hand over his face, hanging his head. Then he met my eyes. “I didn’t have the best home life as a kid.”
I wasn’t all that surprised by this. To become men like us who had no problem blurring the lines of morality and legality, you’d have to have some serious shit lurking in your closet.
“I never knew my dad. And my mom had problems with drugs. She tried to get her shit together, but her addiction always won to the point she’d often forget she had two kids.”
“Two kids?” I arched a brow.
“I had a sister.” His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down in a hard swallow. “Chandler.”
I closed my eyes, the puzzle pieces snapping into place. All the research I’d done on her came rushing back. The child endangerment charges against her mother. The photos from grade school. Her brother.
They looked familiar when I first saw their photos.
Now I knew why.
Because Chandler was Blake’s sister.
And Pierson Meadows was Blake.
“I haven’t seen her in over twenty years, but I haven’t given up hope of finding her.”
I could respect that. But that still didn’t explain the brand. Or anything else.
“What did you mean when you said it was a mark of ownership?” I gestured toward his chest. “Where did you get it?”
“We went hungry a lot. During the school year, we managed, even if we only got one meal a day. But during the summer, we didn’t have that. So I tried to find food any way I could. Rummaging through dumpsters. Sneaking into people’s homes. Stealing from convenience stores. Which is how I met Isaac.”
“Isaac?”
“The one who gave me this.” He pointed to his chest. “I tried not to shoplift at the same store twice. But there were only so many places within a few-mile radius. Unfortunately, one of the stores figured out what I was doing and stopped me, threatening to call the police. But Isaac was there and stepped in. Paid for everything I’d taken.
Invited Chandler and me to his house for dinner. ”
My stomach sank. I already sensed where this was going.
“I knew it was a bad idea. But we were so hungry. There’s this pain in your body from hunger that’s unlike anything I’d experienced before.
Or since. Like your body is physically eating away at itself.
I remember thinking if he had a thing for teenage boys, I’d let him do whatever he wanted if it meant my sister didn’t have to go hungry. ”
“Jesus,” I exhaled.
I may have had a rough childhood and adolescence, but I was always fed. Always had a bed to sleep in at night.
“That’s how desperate I was,” Blake explained. “I’d do anything for one decent meal. Or so I thought.”
“What happened?”
“Nothing at first. He did as he promised. Cooked us dinner. I still remember it. He made a feast fit for a kid. Cheeseburgers. Fries. Hot dogs. Pizza. Ice cream. Soda.” He averted his gaze. “To this day, I still can’t eat any of that stuff.”
“When did things go…south?” I asked, trying to give him space to tell his story but also needing him to hurry so I could figure out where Ariana was.
“I don’t know the exact timeline. It was probably a few days later when we finally woke up.”
“Woke up?”
“I remember wondering why Isaac wasn’t eating anything. I figured he’d already eaten.”
“He drugged the food,” I exhaled.
“Yeah.”
“And when you woke up?”
“He claimed God spoke to him and chose me for redemption. That I was a sinner, and he needed to help me earn God’s forgiveness, or some shit.
I don’t really know. I tried to block out that time.
All I know is he twisted religion to justify the abuse he put us through every fucking day.
The things he did… The things we were forced to do…
” He shook his head, his hands visibly shaking.
“Sometimes I still hear the screams. In a twisted way, you wanted to hear screams.”
“Why?”
He huffed out a laugh. “Because it meant that person hadn’t lost their humanity yet. They hadn’t been brainwashed yet. They were still fighting. Still resisting. Even if it meant you’d only suffer more. There was one thing Isaac said a lot.”
“What’s that?”
“That suffering is the first step toward purification.”
My stomach churned. I had a difficult relationship with religion, especially after the shit my father did. He was strict, but he wasn’t twisted like this.
“What happened to your sister? To Chandler?”
“I could see her slipping. Could see her becoming compliant. I knew I had to get her out of there. Especially after…”
“Yes?” I pressed, desperate to know more.
“He loved playing mind games. Tests of loyalty. One day we were all called to chapel. It wasn’t for a normal church service.
It never was. But this time, I sensed something was wrong.
And I was right.” He squeezed his eyes shut, his muscles scrunched up tight.
“When I walked into that space, my mother was there.”
“She was?” I asked, although I sensed it wasn’t to reunite them.
“Isaac gave some spiel about how she was a sinner who put our lives in danger. I don’t quite remember exactly what he said.
All I can remember is how he gave Chandler a gun and told her to shoot her.
This was the sort of thing he did. He manipulated and brainwashed the most vulnerable to blindly follow and obey.
But that day? I could tell Chandler was struggling.
She still had her humanity, and I refused to let her live with that kind of guilt.
” He hung his head, his entire body seeming to tremble beneath the weight of everything.
Then he slowly lifted his eyes to meet mine. “So I did it. I took the gun from Chandler and killed our mother. After that, I knew I had to get her out of there before Isaac twisted her mind completely. So I helped her escape.”
“And you?”
He slowly shook his head. “I had to make sure Isaac was…distracted.”
I swallowed hard, not wanting to ask what he had to do in order to distract this sick fuck.
“But you eventually got free.”
He nodded. “When I was about seventeen.”
“How?”
“I knew the only way to survive was to make Isaac think I was a believer. I had to do a lot of shit I wasn’t proud of, but it was the only way to earn his trust. Eventually, I did enough for him to start inviting me to play chess with him.
One night, I hid a knife and stabbed him, then ran as far as I could. ”
“Wow,” I exhaled, staring into the distance for a beat, my mind spinning. Then I sucked in a breath, flinging my gaze back to the symbol on his chest. “That brand… Did everyone he took get one?”
He nodded, his brows furrowing. “Why?”
“It’s… It’s probably nothing.”
“Tell me. What is it?”
“Amber… Sarah’s mom. She had something similar. Or part of it. She had a jagged scar cut through it. Like she’d tried to remove it. The only parts left were the blade and the crown. I’d asked her about it, but she never wanted to talk about it.”
Blake straightened. “What did she look like?” he pressed, borderline frantic.
I shook my head. It had been years since I’d seen Amber. Not since she reached out and told me about the cancer and I hacked into the adoption records so she could pass away knowing our baby had the life we hoped for her.
“A lot like Sarah, actually. Except for her eyes. Sarah has my eyes. But the rest of her — her hair, her smile, her nose — that’s all Amber.”
“Show me.”
“What?”
“A photo, Henry. Show me a fucking photo.”
“I don’t have…,” I began but trailed off. I reached for my wallet, pulling out the photo I’d kept there for years. The only photo I had of Amber holding Sarah in the minutes before the social worker came in to take her to her new family.
Swallowing hard, I handed it to Blake.
The second I did, he released a sound that was between an exhale and a sob.
“What is it?” I asked, my voice shaking.
He squeezed his eyes shut before slowly lifting his head. “That’s my sister. That’s Chandler.”